Streetscape improvements great for Gartside Street, Wanniassa

Released 07/09/2017

An upgrade will get underway on Gartside Street this week to deliver streetscape improvements to make this popular street safer through better separation of vehicles and people and improved amenity of the area more generally.

Community feedback on the draft plan received in mid 2016 has helped develop a design for Gartside Street that will better manage traffic and parking while encouraging greater pedestrian activity and street activation.

“The 2012 Erindale Group Centre master plan identified Gartside Street as important to Erindale’s ‘café culture’ with a vision for the street to be a place for people to gather and enjoy the space, and to make it a more liveable street. This upgrade has been planned and designed to realise this vision,” said Acting Director City Services, Transport and City Services, Ben McHugh.

“Gartside Street will be narrowed to slow cars, providing room for safer indented car parking as well as more space in the verges for pedestrians, street trees, footpaths and paved gathering spaces with seats, bins and bike racks.”

Other improvements as part of the upgrade will include:

reducing the number of driveways along the street to remove conflict points for cars;

improvements to the path on the southern verge to fill in the gaps of the existing path network; and

a pedestrian crossing on Gartside Street and lighting improvements rolled out to the new crossing and along the street.

Through consultation with stakeholders, a pick up/drop off bay outside the gymnastics club for peak hours will also be provided which will help ease the pressure on parking. One of the building owners has also worked closely with Transport Canberra and City Services to provide additional off-street parking to meet the demand.

Businesses will be encouraged to do their bit towards lessening the car parking issues in the area by setting time limits on their privately owned customer parking areas. This will be further assisted as the project will make easier and improved pedestrian access to the nearby long stay parking.

“These parking and other streetscape improvements are opportunities to better manage traffic on Gartside Street and create more comfortable spaces for people to walk, meet, socialise and relax. The works will take around four months to complete,” Ben Mchugh said.